Yeah I realize it's likely 'amatuer'. Still, there is an awful lot(and I do mean a lot) of that kind of fanatical shit out there. No one called Bush the messiah, or any other prez afaik, and all that just because he is black. He won due to racism basically.

I find that both humorous and disturbing.

You also didn't hear any prior president's supporters, prior to being elected literally think he would pay their mortgage either. To be honest with his remarks on the Zimmerman case in Florida, Barry did a pretty good job at setting race relations back a good 30 years.

He just had to put his two cents in and create tension, much like folks like Al Sharton do when they play the race card every 5 minutes.

Yeah I realize it's likely 'amatuer'. Still, there is an awful lot(and I do mean a lot) of that kind of fanatical shit out there. No one called Bush the messiah, or any other prez afaik, and all that just because he is black. He won due to racism basically.

Beamer wrote on Aug 9, 2012, 22:07:The housing crisis didn't begin with the bankers (who had nothing to do with it), lenders (who had enormous amounts), traders (who had less), or borrowers (who also had enormous amounts.)

It started with the government. The government changed the rules. In order to make loans accessible to anyone it changed the laws to encourage loans going out to people with bad credit. Lenders swept in and started offering loans to people that they knew likely couldn't pay it back, because the government changed regulations so that these people could. The lenders immediately sold these loans to traders, most of whom had no idea what was going on.

Borrowers were taking loans they knew they couldn't pay.Lenders were giving them, and as someone that sadly spent a year doing operations/marketing at one of these right out of college, I can tell you most were bending rules for this. I didn't see it first hand, as the ops guys ran my company in a constant struggle with sales guys, but the stories we heard from other companies... and the photoshopped documents we got from borrowers to try to support their loans...Traders were backing and trading these without a clue.

But it all stemmed from the government relaxing regulations stupidly.

Also, I'm ok with people mocking Obama for being owned by corporations as long as they aren't stupid enough to act as if the Republicans aren't even more in debt to corporate overloads. If the Democrats are 99% the Republicans are 105%.

And yet we continue to hear from those same people about how we need less regulation to really progress.

I guess the question goes back to, why would the government relax regulation on an industry unless they were being asked to/paid to/whatever else to.

I have yet to see the laws changed because a handful individuals want them changed, it takes a overwhelming majority of people to make it happen...and most can't even agree on where to eat in a group of 4.

Plus, even after the regulation was relaxed, they were selling these bad loans at the highest credit rating despite knowing full well they weren't. I highly doubt the government gave a green light to that before or during, but it seems they did after with the lack of prosecution taking place.

And all the rumors of people not having to substantiate how much they made or their worth when applying for loans, just put in a number. Which often times the lender would fill in for you, falsely of course, or change after you applied to make you more appealing....were allegations of that going on to. I remember a story of a guy who never made over 60 grand in his life in any one year, and his loan had him down at about 10 times what he made in a good year.

That kind of stuff, if isolated would be easy to find and prosecute. I think it was pervasive and they just threw their hands up and said screw it at some point, because if they started putting people on the chopping block there wouldn't be many left.

Stories of guys just out of college chumming up to the movie stars, buying the place champagne and having obscene amounts of money because they were lending and bundling these bad loans up and selling them. Etc etc....

In the end it sounded a lot like the ruins of a ponzi scheme. With the home owners being at the bottom (all of them whether they borrowed or not). And the corporations management at the top, because those bonuses were paid out even during the bailouts or perhaps even with the bailouts.

And this all proceeds the illegal foreclosures and what not we hear in the news all the time. And it also sets the standard that they can both take bail out money, which presumably was given to them to stabilize the market so a whole lot of people didn't end up out of their house....and they still end up foreclosing despite the bail out. So they get the bailout money, the house, and any breaks for holding foreclosed properties in a down market.

The whole thing stinks of BS, like it was a concerted effort to screw as many people as possible before it burst. Rational people wouldn't flood/kill their area of expertise like that...they want steady business. Not flood/drought business cycles because it's too volatile to take a chance and expand.

My overall point is, actual value/money was lost and no one seems to be straightening that shit out, protecting against it happening again, prosecuting people who abused/cheated the system with deception. Where as in Dotcom case we have virtual maybe money if a whole lot of criteria is met, and they are busting out all the influence to make sure something happened fast in spite of actual procedure. In a completely different country and on a far less all encompassing scale....he might have had an impact on more people than a mugger, but certainly less than a global economic meltdown and the people who clowned around during it.

The scale of the crime, if huge, seems to warrant no response...or even free money.

GSK fiasco is another great example of BS. Guys pushing drugs via bribery for unapproved treatments and they got fined. Where's the raiding and the beating, they were endangering lives with that shit. Not to mention creating an environment of distrust in the doctor/patient relationship where the money/vacations/madonna tickets means more than your health potentially.

It pays to go big in your crime is the bottom line, no arrests, fines that don't even eliminate half the profits from your crimes don't seem very punitive. And as individuals in these companies, it's not like your take home pay is in danger......even though you knew you were doing illegal shit. Can't help but shake my head at the inconsistent application of laws where crime takes place and yet there's not even a trial to punish the responsible parties...just fines.

Julio wrote on Aug 9, 2012, 19:52:The US Government (and the corporations that own it) definitely are pretty scary. Guess democracy is dead in the US, wonder when we'll see the Obama Youth being formed.

Kim Dotcom must of had "datas of mass destruction" since they sent in like 2 tac sub-machine squads and 5 or so of vehicles 2 helicopters to his property and beat him up even though they already seized his data/servers elsewhere...

Nah, Germany is close to invading the Swiss for their banks ignoring tax laws in Germany. It should have been in the news that Germany is buying near a dozen illegal (in Swiss) tax data CD's with data on German high profile tax-evaders. They nearly got our "paid" shill in Government to sign a tax amnesty but thankfully our regional govs are boycotting it, bit simply buying more tax data cd's which obviously is a good thing if you want to prevent a treaty that makes this illegal. The Swiss will not sign it now. ;p I think at some point, Swiss banks will lose their license EU wide if they continue to piss us off by protecting tax evaders, particularly as its the upper 1%, and even our politicians have noticed that you win elections by actually punishing the upper 1% (our elections are not easily bought ;p). It will just take 2 or 3 more years of crisis and the Swiss would have wished they never had helped anyone evade German taxes.

So you see. It's hard to have a better friend than Russia. Russia would never help anyone evade taxes in Germany. hehe

The housing crisis didn't begin with the bankers (who had nothing to do with it), lenders (who had enormous amounts), traders (who had less), or borrowers (who also had enormous amounts.)

It started with the government. The government changed the rules. In order to make loans accessible to anyone it changed the laws to encourage loans going out to people with bad credit. Lenders swept in and started offering loans to people that they knew likely couldn't pay it back, because the government changed regulations so that these people could. The lenders immediately sold these loans to traders, most of whom had no idea what was going on.

Borrowers were taking loans they knew they couldn't pay.Lenders were giving them, and as someone that sadly spent a year doing operations/marketing at one of these right out of college, I can tell you most were bending rules for this. I didn't see it first hand, as the ops guys ran my company in a constant struggle with sales guys, but the stories we heard from other companies... and the photoshopped documents we got from borrowers to try to support their loans...Traders were backing and trading these without a clue.

But it all stemmed from the government relaxing regulations stupidly.

Also, I'm ok with people mocking Obama for being owned by corporations as long as they aren't stupid enough to act as if the Republicans aren't even more in debt to corporate overloads. If the Democrats are 99% the Republicans are 105%.

Julio wrote on Aug 9, 2012, 19:52:The US Government (and the corporations that own it) definitely are pretty scary. Guess democracy is dead in the US, wonder when we'll see the Obama Youth being formed.

Veterator wrote on Aug 9, 2012, 15:36:Most CEOs in the US are douches, when are they going to bust in their doors and beat em up some while they seize their assets and holdings? Or the bankers.......

Has to be easier to bust them for douchebaggery and illegal practices when they are in the same country as the people pushing for it.

Dotcom needs to beef up on his white collar crime if he wants to run with the big dogs.

Most CEOs and bankers don't do anything illegal. Hell, most CEOs and bankers don't do anything shady. They're jerks, but doing everything 100% within the law.

Which is why the laws may be an issue, but tell that to RollinThunder.

Even most traders, which is probably what you mean when you say "bankers," don't do anything particularly bad, but it's their culture that's really screwing everything up (and, at this point, I think most people will never understand the difference between an investment banker and a trader. I'm always surprised the media doesn't actually use proper terms. Traders are not bankers, they're greedy monkeys with terminals.)

Similar boat in my mind.

Dotcom may or may not have been profiting directly from copyright infringement. They threw the law out the window instead of building a proper case and went after him.

CEOs/whoever may be in charge of companies may or may not be breaking employment laws by requiring Facebook logins and other information on people that is in direct violation to protected classes and other criteria they aren't allowed to ask about. Divorced, have kids, planning to have kids, gay, straight, member of whatever political group, etc.

Hell companies doing 5 year long wage freezes despite posting a lot of profits to me seems like another questionable thing they should be investigating. Not temporary wage freezes, minimum period wage freezes. Caterpillar was going for 6 year wage freezes.

Bankers/traders/lenders/mortgage handlers. I frankly can't tell where the housing crisis began or ended in that group of people. It seemed like everyone hand their hand in the jar and fueled the frenzy despite all indicators and basic common sense. Kept telling people everything was great and kept on lending. Then after it busted, which they had a large hand in, they had many instances of illegal foreclosures. They broke into a guy's home and "winterized" after he just bought it.

Hell on another forum was reading about a guy who was unable to buy a house because the bank who was trying to short sale it was operating in bad faith and wasn't disclosing the existence of liens on the property. Trying to handle them by delaying the process and kept silent until they couldn't hide it any longer.

I mean .....this stuff is right up to the line of fraud if not outright fraud. Why aren't they being busted? They are in the US doing this stuff. They are hurting real people's funds and homes, not imaginary copyright infringement bucks. Yet the imaginary funds gets the assault squads..and can't even seal the deal because they borked it.

The obvious answer is that busting corporations and their employees doesn't aid corporations. And when it comes between corporations, the one with the deepest pockets gets to choose what happens to the less influential companies. I always like to ask myself, would an individual doing this to another individual be in jail? If the answer is probably yes, then the law should be applied the same to corporations. If the answer is no, then the corporation is probably as close to "good" as it can be considering how favorable the laws are toward them versus the individual.